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Tuesday, December 29, 2015

“This Act includes $1,631,000,000 for
Planetary Science.Of this amount,
$261,000,000 is for Outer Planets, of which $175,000,000 is for the Jupiter
Europa clipper mission and clarifies that this mission shall include an orbiter
with a lander that will include competitively selected instruments and that
funds shall be used to finalize the mission design concept with a target launch
date of 2022.”

“…$175,000,000 is for an orbiter with a
lander to meet the science goals for the Jupiter Europa mission as outlined in
the most recent planetary science decadal survey.That the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration shall use the Space Launch System as the launch vehicle for the
Jupiter Europa mission, plan for a launch no later than 2022, and include in
the fiscal year 2017 budget the 5-year funding profile necessary to achieve
these goals.”

While there’s at least eight years until it launches, this has been a
pivotal year for developing NASA’s Europa mission.Last spring, NASA selected a
rich and highly capable instrument set.This summer, following a design concept review, the mission moved from
concept studies to an official mission.And just last week, Congress directed NASA to expand the mission by
adding a small lander as well as launch the mission by 2022 and use the Space
Launch System. These latter aren’t just suggestions: they are the law.

There’s been almost no official information on the lander.What we know comes from a long
article from Ars Technica’s Eric Berger on the then possible addition of a
lander and a dedicated plume flyby sub-satellite.Berger is a long time space reporter and has
developed a good relationship with House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman
John Culberson (R-TX).(I make sure I
read all of Berger’s articles.)As
Berger describes in detail in his article, Culberson has been the driving force
behind the aggressive funding for this mission.

In addition to an earlier launch, .Culberson also has wanted to see the
mission carry a lander in addition to the mother craft that would make at least
45 close flybys of the moon.In prior
years, Culberson added funding to NASA’s budget specifically to study a lander
option, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s engineers have been studying
options.Berger’s story is focused more
on Culberson, but it does provide a number of facts about the possible design
for the lander:

The leading concept for the lander
would be a small lander, perhaps about 230 kg with 20-30 kg for
instruments.For comparison, the 1996
Mars Pathfinder lander had a mass of 265 kg.

The lander would be delivered to
Jovian orbit by the main spacecraft and then released in a high parking orbit
well outside the intense radiation fields at Europa’s orbit.The main spacecraft would study Europa’s
surface for two to three years during its flybys to find the best combination
of a scientifically interesting and safe landing spot.

The actual landing would use the
same skycrane approach used by the Curiosity Mars mission to deliver the lander
safely to the surface.

The lander would likely last
perhaps 10 days on the surface using battery power.During the lander’s lifetime, it would
investigate the chemistry of the surface using a mass spectrometer and possibly
a Raman spectrometer.

A lander could add $700M or more to
the mission cost.The last cost estimate
I heard for just the main spacecraft was $2.1B.We don’t know how firm the lander cost estimate is.

Adding a lander would delay launch
from a possible 2022 to 2023.

This description is pretty bare bones, but with a little legwork, it is
possible to flesh out these ideas with some informed speculation.It helps that a number of previous studies
have been published that examined concepts for a Europa lander.

In the mid-2000s, NASA studied a small Europa
lander that would have had similar mass and capabilities to those
reportedly be considered for the approved Europa mission. Credit: NASA/JPL.

The primary goal of any lander would be to sample material from the
interior ocean to see if the chemicals needed to support life are present and
whether complex organic molecules suggesting biotic or pre-biotic activity
exist.We lack the technology to drill
through the kilometers of ice to reach the ocean directly.However, in many locations the icy shell
appears to be fractured and water from below has spilled onto the surface and
frozen and in certain locations may be actively venting into space.The goal will be to set the lander down in
one of these zones.

Our current knowledge of Europa’s surface is too poor to select the
scientifically most interesting sites that are also safe to land in.The main spacecraft will spend three years
circling Jupiter and flying low over Europa 45 times.One of its prime goals will be to for its
cameras and spectrometers to find the optimal combination of evidence of ocean
material on the surface with a safe landing zone.Any landing will need to wait for scientists
to build their high resolution maps.

One aspect of this proposed lander concept is different than those I’ve
seen before.Most lander studies have
looked at small spacecraft (and this proposal would count as a small
spacecraft) that would be carried by the mother craft until just before landing.For the design Berger reported on, lander and
its descent stage would orbit Jupiter on their own for months to years before
landing.This means that together they
are a fully functional independent spacecraft with its own solar arrays for
power, propulsion, navigation, and communications.Apparently the cost and mass of adding these
functions to the descent stage and lander is a better bargain than adding the
radiation hardening that would be required if the lander were carried past
Europa 45 times.

Once on the surface, the lander could be well protected from
radiation.The rotation of Jupiter’s
magnetosphere causes the radiation to slam into Europa’s trailing
hemisphere.The leading hemisphere has
Europa’s bulk as a very effective radiation shield, and radiation there is
fairly low.Past proposals have focused
on putting a lander on the leading hemisphere.As a result, the lander likely would run out of power before radiation
would fry its electronics.Fortunately,
there are several regions on the leading hemisphere where the icy shell appears
to have been recently (in geologic terms, anyway) fractured.

Berger’s article states that the lander likely would be powered by
batteries, limiting its life to around 10 days.Solar panels apparently are being considered, but I can see why they
might not be attractive.Sunlight at
Jupiter is weak, and solar panels large enough to harvest a meaningful amount of
that light might be too bulky and heavy for the mission.

Berger’s article lists just two possible instruments for the lander.Based on his language, the core instrument
would be a mass spectrometer that would “weigh” the molecules and atoms in
samples scooped, cut, or drilled from the surface.Extremely complex molecules could suggest
life, especially if they are rich in elements, like carbon, which are the basis
for life on the Earth.A second
instrument under consideration would be a Raman spectrometer that would
illuminate samples with lasers and use the resulting “glow” to measure
composition including complex organic molecules.(For those who understand Raman spectroscopy,
please forgive this simplification of a complex subject; here’s a link to a Wikipedia article
for more on this technology.)I’ve also
heard through other sources that the lander would carry an imager to examine
the terrain around the landing site.

Once on the surface, the lander would use a sample acquisition system
to collect a sample of ice from the surface.As Berger points out, at Europa’s surface temperatures, the ice is as
hard as rock, so the cutting or drilling mechanism will need to be robust.After the sample is collected, it would be
delivered to the instruments to measure its composition.If the lander touches down near an active
vent, the mass spectrometer could also measure the composition of the particles
and gases in the plume.

Previous studies typically have proposed at least two other instruments.Europa’s icy shell is constantly being
stressed by the tides induced by Jupiter which should produce high seismic activity.A seismometer would give scientists a rich
data set on the interior structure of the ice.Europa also sits within Jupiter’s intense magnetosphere which causes an
induced magnetic field in the moon’s interior ocean.How this induced field varies as Europa
orbits Jupiter would provide valuable clues to the size and salinity of the
ocean.A magnetometer on the lander
could provide continuous measurements for the life of the lander.Berger’s article was silent on whether or not
these instruments are under consideration for this version of the lander.

(On a side note, a magnetometer plus a simple plasma probe would allow
the lander to conduct useful science while it orbits Jupiter waiting for
landing.Scientists would like to study
Jupiter’s magnetosphere from multiple locations at once.The lander while in orbit around Jupiter could
complement similar measurements from the main spacecraft, and depending on the
timing, also from Europe’s JUICE spacecraft that will enter Jovian orbit in the
late 2020s.)

Berger’s article is silent on how data would be returned to Earth.Two possibilities are obvious – low data rate
transmissions directly from the lander to Earth or high data rate transmissions
from the lander to the orbiter for later relay to Earth.Data relay from the mother flyby spacecraft
likely would be possible, but the rapidly changing relative locations of the
landing site and the orbiter circling Jupiter may limit how much data could be
returned and when communication relay is possible.A
recent European study for a Europa lander assumed that the mother
spacecraft would have just one chance to directly receive data from the lander
in a 10 day period.One argument for
excluding a seismometer is that this instrument would produce large amounts of
data that may be difficult to return directly to Earth.The European study found that the brief relay
between lander and orbiter would have enabled the return of seismic data.Magnetometers, on the other hand, produce
only small amounts of data that likely could be directly relayed to Earth
(assuming the lander would have that ability).

In the highest resolution images obtained
by the Galileo Jupiter orbiter, the regions of Europa that appear to be
fractured and have possible ocean material on the surface are extremely rugged;
these cliffs are approximately 10 stories tall.Credit: NASA/JPL.

A major challenge for any Europa lander will be that the scientifically
most interesting places to study also appear to have extremely rugged terrain
which makes landing risky.Berger’s
article briefly mentions that the lander would use an autonomous landing system
to examine the terrain below it to pick out safe spots to put down.Technologies to allow a lander to image its
landing site during descent have been studied for years and were implemented on
the Chinese Chang’e 3 lunar lander and are under consideration for NASA’s 2020
Mars rover.During final descent, these systems use images
taken by the lander in real time to analyze the terrain below to identify safe
landing zones.With an autonomous guided
descent, scientists can target an area that overall is rugged but has small
safe zones.

What I conclude from the clues Berger supplies is that the Europa
landing would be much like the Philae comet lander (although with Europa’s
higher gravity, the lander will not bounce across the surface after touchdown
as Philae did).The lander would have
just a few days to conduct its operations and return the data to Earth.On Mars, we have become accustomed to landed
missions that last years with plenty of time to carefully consider where to
sample and then conduct follow up studies.A Europa lander will be a mad dash to complete the science goals before
the batteries die.

By the end of its life, the lander will have returned our first data
directly from the surface of an ocean world that may harbor life that arose
independently from the life on Earth.

Launch on the Space Launch System (SLS)
booster currently being developed by NASA primarily to support human
exploration would significantly shorten the flight time to Jupiter.Other presentations list the nominal cost for
an Atlas launch at ~$350M and for an SLS launch at ~$500M.Reducing the cost of operations during the flight
to Europa could make the SLS option, which is currently required by law, equal
to or cheaper than the Atlas option.Credit:
NASA/JPL.

Editorial Thoughts:I of course
want to see a lander delivered to the surface of Europa, but I have mixed
feelings about the inclusion of a lander on NASA’s first dedicated mission to
Europa for two reasons.First, as I will
explore in more detail in my next post, adding a lander to the existing Europa
mission will push its costs up, perhaps to the $3.5B range when including a launch
on the SLS.Congress will need to
substantially increase the planetary budget to prevent the Europa mission from
crowding out the smaller planetary missions that provide balance to the
program.While Congress can pass budget
laws directing year to year spending, meeting these aggressive goals will
require that the President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) accepts the
new plan and allows NASA to sign the necessary multi-year contracts with its
vendors.In the past, OMB has resisted
prioritizing the Planetary Science budget to accommodate a Europa mission.

Second, the driving force behind the expanded mission depends on one
Congressman and his continued re-election, his political party’s continued
control of Congress, and his health.The
alternative approach would be to run the exploration as NASA has run the Mars
program by spreading costs out over a sequence of missions.This would be in the vein of the proposed
“Ocean Worlds” program currently being shopped to NASA and Congress.

I expect that in the next few months that we will learn considerably
more about the lander’s design and NASA’s plans on how it will fit into its
overall planetary program.

Artist's conception of the InSight lander with the seismometer and heat flow instruments deployed. Credit JPL

Deciding not to proceed with the launch just three months away will likely prove to be the toughest or one of the toughest decisions these managers will make in their careers. I also believe they made the right decision. Hail Mary passes make for good football but terrible management of space missions.So how might this affect NASA's planetary program? The answer breaks into three parts.In the short term, there are three immediate steps. The spacecraft will be returned to its manufacturer, Lockheed-Martin for storage. The French space agency, which is supplying the seismometer, will work to fix the problems to enable the possibility of a future launch. And the launch vehicle will need to be stored or assigned to launch another spacecraft.In the intermediate term, NASA's managers must decide whether to launch the mission 26 months later in 2018 when Mars and Earth again align or cancel the mission. The InSight mission is funded through NASA's Discovery program, which imposes strict cost caps on missions. The costs of storing the spacecraft and then retesting it prior to a later launch very likely will bust those caps. NASA's regulations require a formal review of whether or not to delay the mission or cancel it.For the longer term, InSight's problems could have two effects on the pace of future Discovery missions. If the mission is cancelled, there are no additional costs associated with it and almost $150M in future InSight costs are avoided. Five proposed missions are currently being evaluated for selection in approximately nine months. NASA's managers have stated that they would like to select two of those missions if they possibly can. If InSight is cancelled, then NASA has additional funds to apply to the next next mission or missions selected next September.If NASA decides not to cancel InSight, then the space agency will have new costs associated with the storage and later recommissioning of the spacecraft and possibly higher costs for the launch. In addition, the costs of operating the mission will be pushed forward into 2018 to 2020 when the peak funding for the development of the next Discovery missions is required. (NASA can't simply bank the money it would have spent on InSight from 2016 to 2018. That money would either need to be spent on other missions or returned to the general federal budget. The Federal government works on a spend as you go basis.) The likely result is that NASA would be able to select just one new Discovery mission this coming September. One of my correspondents tells me that just last week NASA's manager for its planetary program, Jim Green, said at a scientific conference that he hoped to select two Discovery missions in September unless InSight is delayed.No matter how you look at it, InSight's problems seem likely to cause NASA to fly one fewer Discovery mission. Either InSight is cancelled or NASA selects just one Discovery mission from the current competition.If I were to place a bet, I would guess that NASA will decide to delay InSight, select just one new Discovery mission this September for launch by 2021, and select the next Discovery mission in 2019 for launch in the mid-2020s. The science InSight would conduct to study the interior of Mars is compelling and the costs of delay seem likely to be less than the cost of a full new Discovery mission. But please remember, this is only my speculation. NASA's managers need to make the hard call.

About Me

You can contact me at futureplanets1@gmail.com with any questions or comments.
I have followed planetary exploration since I opened my newspaper in 1976 and saw the first photo from the surface of Mars. The challenges of conceiving and designing planetary missions has always fascinated me. I don't have any formal tie to NASA or planetary exploration (although I use data from NASA's Earth science missions in my professional work as an ecologist).
Corrections and additions always welcome.